Archive for February, 2019

“Initiative 1639 is unconstitutional in many respects and punishes law-abiding citizens, while doing nothing to keep firearms away from criminals,” said Shea in a written statement. In its current form, the law represents the most sweeping, comprehensive gun control legislation in any state. It enacts waiting periods and background checks on the purchase of semi-automatic weapons, an increase to the minimum age for purchasing semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21, storage requirements for firearms, and a class-C felony for any gun owner whose firearm is used by an unlicensed party.

The Montana House on Thursday passed two bills seeking to prohibit local governments from passing strict gun ordinances.Republican Rep. Matt Regier said his bills are a response to Missoula city ordinances that require background checks for private gun sales and ban weapons in certain public buildings, parks, places of public assembly and polling sites.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week asked New Jersey officials to respond to a petition filed by a state resident allied with gun rights advocates. The case, that of Thomas Rogers and the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, had been turned away by the state’s own supreme court, setting the stage for the current appeal to the federal bench.

This is a positive for everyone. No-knock raids put police in more danger as well as the suspects and bystanders, especially in states where gun ownership is common. More police departments should consider this kind of reform.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo says his department will stop serving “no knock” search warrants, weeks after a raid on a house left two married suspects dead and five officers injured. Acevedo also reiterated that the officer who led that raid may face criminal charges. “The no-knock warrant’s going to go away, kind of like leaded gasoline in our city,” Acevedo said. He added that raids that stem from those warrants would only be used in very limited cases — and that they would not be used to nab people suspected of dealing small amounts of drugs.

It has been 11 years since a 5–4 majority, in District of Columbia v. Heller, announced that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess handguns in the home for purposes of self-defense. It has been nine years since the same majority held in McDonald v. City of Chicago that an identical handgun-possession right is “incorporated” by the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (which means it applies to states—and cities—as well as to the federal government). The Court in Heller indicated that it was deciding only a narrow question. Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion cautioned that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

A bill that sponsors say was drafted by Lake Oswego high school students would ban virtually all modern firearms, require background checks to purchase ammunition and limit those purchases to 20 rounds per month. Under Senate Bill 501, you would be required to get your sheriff’s permission to simply buy a gun and a gun dealer would have to wait at least two weeks before you could take possession of one of the very few firearms you would be allowed to have. You would only be allowed to purchase one handgun and one long gun a month. If you did not lock up a gun and it was stolen, you could possibly get more jail time than the person who stole it.

The first time I couldn’t buy food at the grocery store, I was 15 years old. It was 2014 in Caracas, Venezuela, and I had spent more than an hour in line waiting. When I got to the register, I noticed I had forgotten my ID that day. Without the ID, the government rationing system would not let the supermarket sell my family the full quota of food we needed. It was four days until the government allowed me to buy more.

My family and I suffered from blackouts and lack of water. The regime nationalized electricity in 2007 in an effort to make electricity “free.” Unsurprisingly, this resulted in underinvestment in the electrical grid. By 2016, my home lost power roughly once a week.

“Clearly, the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee don’t care about preventing gun violence, they simply are playing politics with Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” Steube, a Republican, said after the vote. “The fact that Democrats do not want law enforcement notified if an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a background check is truly troubling.”

If enacted, H.R. 1156 would permit all qualified active and retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms on state, local and private property otherwise open to the public; on Gun Free School Zones; in federal security level I or II public access facilities; and in national parks, according to a summary of the bill provided by Rep. Bacon’s office.

The Sheriffs of Washington’s rural counties are increasingly pledging to not enforce the new gun control bill (I-1639) that was passed in November by ballot initiative, citing it as unconstitutional. 22 out of 39 counties make up the latest count, with more expected as the court battles ramp up across the state.

A small county in eastern New Mexico declared itself a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” on Wednesday in protest of pending gun control legislation in the state.The Quay County Commission voted unanimously to pass the resolution, Albuquerque’s KRQE-TV reported.

The Republican-led Senate approved Senate Bill 150 on a 29-8 vote and sent it to the GOP-led House for its consideration. Kentucky could become the 15th state in the nation to adopt a permitless carry law.